


powered by (you and i)

by inberin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Minor Violence, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5519480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inberin/pseuds/inberin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>GUARDIAN DEITY AND MYSTERY HERO: STOPPING ROBBERIES LIGHTNING-QUICK</i><br/>Local superhero Guardian Deity has worked his magic yet again—this time on the perpetrator of a series of small robberies in the Toruno area.</p><p> </p><p>aka this is a superhero AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	powered by (you and i)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asofthaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asofthaven/gifts).



> HAPPY WINTER HOLIDAYS
> 
> i loved this prompt but i think the plot got a little carried away and ill talk more below but for now HERE WE GO

_November 10th, 2015_

GUARDIAN DEITY AND MYSTERY HERO: STOPPING ROBBERIES LIGHTNING-QUICK

 _Local superhero Guardian Deity has worked his magic yet again—this time on the perpetrator of a series of small robberies in the Toruno area._  
  
_Residents living around the Toruno area had been reporting accounts of various thefts and store burglaries for around 5 weeks, but there had been no improvements in the situation until yesterday afternoon, when Guardian Deity himself had arrived on scene, quickly dispatching the criminal with minimal use of his powers and no collateral damage._  
  
_However, before the perpetrator could be delivered to the authorities, eyewitness accounts report that three more of the criminal's accomplices had leapt out from a back alley at Guardian Deity, supposedly armed with knives. At this point, a sixth party was said to have joined the fray by jumping off the top of a nearby building and landing in front of Guardian Deity, and appeared to take a few blows before dispatching the rest of the thieves together with Guardian Deity, which caused a short power surge in the area. The mystery hero disappeared after the event, before any contact, civilian or otherwise, could be made._  
  
_This mystery hero has not been identifi—_

“That’s him, though, isn’t it?” Yuu shouts, interrupting Ryuunosuke’s monotonous newspaper reading by snatching the paper excitedly out of his hands. Any class 2-4 students hanging around the classroom during lunch are so used to their little group’s antics that they don’t even react to the sudden loud noise. “It’s the Insuperable! He’s back!”

“We don’t know that.” Hisashi says, yawning widely and slumping onto Chikara's desk. “All it says is that the person took some hits and was fine, is all.”

“ _Knife hits_ ,” Yuu emphasises. “You can't just take hits like that and not have super no-sell powers!”

“Hyperresistance to external trauma,” Kazuhito corrects from where he’s leaning beside the window. “Maybe they're actually severely injured, and just managed to make an escape quickly through his injuries. We wouldn't know.”

Yuu stares balefully at the slightly blurry image of the dark figure, almost a shadow next to the brighter yellow of the Guardian Deity's outfit. “Aren't any of you excited that he could be back? It's been ages,” he appeals to his friends.

"He didn't say when he would be coming back, Nishinoya. Even the Guardian Deity has no idea where he is right now, or if he's retiring forever." Chikara slides a pair of scissors towards Yuu. "Here."

"Thanks," Yuu mumbles as he takes the scissors and starts carefully snipping the article out of the newspaper. He’d really prefer a penknife and a ruler, to keep the edges of the article straight and smooth, but he left his own set in his classroom, so he’ll blag off Chikara’s kindness for as long as he can.

"I gotta get back to class," Hisashi says as he lifts his face from Chikara's table and peels a stray worksheet off his face, while ignoring the way Kazuhito shakes his head disapprovingly, but amusedly at him. "See you guys at practice?"

Ryuunosuke claps a hand on Yuu's shoulder. "Don't worry, Noya-san. The Guardian Deity's always gonna be around. He promised and everything!"

"I know," Yuu replies with a tired, but grateful note in his voice. "Thanks, Ryuu."

“No sweat,” Ryuunosuke says, grinning wide.

And then they’re gone, and Class 2-4 falls silent again.

Mostly silent, at least. Yuu sees Chikara raise an eyebrow at him out of the corner of his eye. "Aren't you going to go?"

"I'll be fine, the bell hasn't rung yet," Yuu tells him, still maneuvering the scissors around the photograph of the Guardian Deity and the slightly unfocused image of the mystery hero.

"It's going to in just a second," Chikara warns.

"Yeah, yeah," Yuu says, snipping one last time and freeing the article from the newspaper. He hands the scissors back to Chikara with the biggest grin he can muster, just as the bell rings. "Thanks for the help, Chikara!" he calls as he shoots out of the borrowed chair, clutching the newspaper cutting with utmost care.

"Sure," Chikara says, putting the scissors back in his pencilcase and waving as Yuu sprints back to his own classroom. "Anytime."

 

Thinking back, it really was obvious right from the get-go. The blackout in the hospital right after he was born. The radio switching stations erratically whenever he had cried as a child. A gaming console shutting itself down when he'd found out the friend he was playing with had been cheating the whole time.

Yuu always was destined for great things, his parents told him, the way all parents say to their children. He hadn’t believed it until the day he stood over the incapacitated body of a burglar, electricity crackling in both his hands.

 

"Nice receive, Nishinoya!"

The ball sails in a neat arc to Kageyama's position before being immediately sent in a quick back set to the right. It's Ryuunosuke who leaps for it, smashing the ball in a heavy straight across the court and ricocheting it right off of Chikara's arms.

Coach Ukai sounds the whistle. “Alright, everyone take a water break.”

“Argh! It sucks not being able to play six-on-six now that the third years are gone,” Yuu groans, mostly to anyone who’s listening.

Kazuhito’s the one who responds. “Three against three is alright, I guess,” he comments, tossing his bottle from one hand to the other. “It leaves a handful of people free to do their own practices.”

“Wah, I miss the third years,” Hisashi wails from where he’s slumped on the floor. “I want Daichi-san to treat us to meat buns again!”

“Capitalist,” Kazuhito snorts at him.

“Wow! Rude, Narita!” Hisashi tries to hurl his empty bottle at Kazuhito’s head, but Kazuhito catches it easily with one hand and spins it, grinning. “It was mostly a dig at Ennoshita, anyway, so whose side are you on?” Hisashi huffs.

“Me?” Chikara asks, plucking the bottle from Kazuhito’s hand and holding his hand out for Yuu’s own empty bottle. “Did I do something?”

“It’s more like what you _haven’t_ done,” Hisashi tells him. “Where are my meat buns, captain!”

“You’ll get them when you offer to fund my meat bun budget, vice-captain. Hand me that bottle over there, will you?”

“Oh, okay, here. Stingy! You’re stingy, Ennoshita!”

Chikara sighs as he fumbles with about five empty sports drink bottles at once. “I was originally going to keep quiet about it, but I’m going to start doing the meat bun thing again after we get our new first-years. Happy?”

Hisashi flounders silently for a bit, then settles on a, “No! We’ve gotta wait a month at least! I’m hungry!”

Chikara turns about and starts walking off towards Yachi with his bottles.

“Damn it, Narita! He’s ignoring me again!”

“You deserve it.”

“I’m vice-captain! I’m not going to take this lying down!”

“Stop trying to throw rank and start acting more like a real vice-captain already.”

“Chikara!” Yuu calls, running a bit to catch up with his captain. Behind him, Hisashi and Kazuhito start arguing about what a vice-captain’s duty actually entails. “Let me help you with those!”

“Oh, thanks,” Chikara says, letting Yuu pick out a couple of bottles. “You really don’t have to.”

“Stop being so polite, Chikara! It’s fine!” He tries to reach for a third bottle, but Chikara quickly holds it up and out of his reach. Unfair. “And you don’t have to do this either, it’s not your job!”

“I know, I know.” Chikara looks like he’d probably he rubbing the back of his neck all sheepishly if he weren’t trying to hold three bottles with two hands. “But Yachi’s just getting used to doing all of the work by herself, and I’m hoping I can make it a little easier for her.”

Yuu turns and looks up at Chikara, really looks at him. He gets a little bemused glance in return. “This is why you’re captain, Chikara!” Yuu tells him. “So you’re not allowed to think otherwise! Not even to yourself!”

“I—Oh, Yachi. Here’s our bottles.”

“Ah! Thank you, Ennoshita-senpai!” Yachi beams as they hand the bottles to her. Somehow, she handles all five without much of a problem. Yuu feels a faint bit of pride. “I’ll take it from here!”

Chikara beams right back at her. “Thanks for your hard work, Yachi.”

“N-no problem! Anytime!”

“Nishinoya,” Chikara says, just as Coach blows the whistle again and everyone starts getting back into their positions. “You too. Thanks.”

Yuu flashes Chikara his brightest grin, and a thumbs up. “Anytime!” he tells him, and tries not to dwell too hard on how Chikara seems like he walks with less of a weight on his shoulders, after.

 

The streets seem to be peaceful as he begins his evening patrol, and Yuu catches himself wishing something , anything would happen, maybe a robbery or a mugging, if it meant the Insuperable would show up again. "That's bad," he says out loud to the empty roads. "Stop it."

"Stop talking to yourself, first," calls a soft voice, and it’s followed with a tiny pebble bouncing harmlessly off of Yuu’s head.

Yuu leaps back on instinct, scanning the trees until he sees the dark figure perched atop the low roof of a nearby building. "Do that again and I'll zap you, No-Sell," he says, but there wouldn’t be any real threat in it even if he tried.

"Sorry for running off the other time." The Insuperable rubs the back of his neck. "I wasn't really sure how to talk to you."

"It's only been a year," Yuu reminds him. "That's not very long."

"I know," the Insuperable says. "But a lot can change in a year."

"I grew a little," Yuu says with a grin. "Nice of you to notice."

The Insuperable steps neatly off the roof and onto the plaster wall dividing the house, then leaps and lands slightly less primly onto the ground beside Yuu. He takes Yuu's preoffered hand gratefully, and lets himself be pulled to his feet. "Is it?" he asks in a dry tone as he dusts his outfit off, readjusts his mask, pats gingerly at his gelled-up hair. "Nice of me, I mean. I always notice you."

Yuu continues walking down his patrol route without a word, and Insuperable follows him just as silently. The streets are still quiet, and the twilight has almost burned itself out. There are stars winking gently in the sky.

"Hey, No-Sell." Yuu turns to him as they turn a corner and into an alleyway filled with shadows from the streetlights. "Are you staying this time?"

"Who's asking?" Insuperable says, examining his gloved hands. "Your fans? The people?"

"I am." Brown eyes blink in surprise at him from behind the black mask. He forces himself to press on. "I'm the one asking."

"Ah, that's unfair, Guardian Deity." Insuperable's lips curl up in a wan smile. "Always so truthful. Isn't it tiring for you?"

"Not really," Yuu says without any hesitation, and shrugs. "It's just the way I am. It's easier telling the truth than pretending it doesn't exist, even though everyone already knows it's there."

"A personal attack!" the Insuperable exclaims, his smile turning wry. "God knows I deserve it, though."

"Yeah, you do," Yuu mutters under his breath. "You and your stupid shitty disappearing act."

"I can hear you."

"I know you can!"

Without warning, the Insuperable breaks out a grin, genuine and bright. His eyes crease shut behind the mask, and the light of the street lamps seems to make him glow, even with the flat black of his hero outfit. Yuu can't believe he has the nerve to call _him_ unfair. Something about the way he smiles is just so awfully, awfully familiar. He can't place it. Is it because he hasn't seen it for a year? No, longer. Longer than a year. He hasn't seen Insuperable smile like that for so long, too long.

"You're just like someone I know," Insuperable says to him, eyes still half-moons of amusement.

Yuu isn't sure how to respond. "Am I?" he finally manages, his throat feeling a little tight.

It's almost fully night now, but it's not hard to miss the way he looks away from Yuu. "I don't know if I'm staying for good this time," he says, his smile slipping, slowly but surely. "But I—"

"Well, it's late! We should go home," Yuu cuts in with a chirp, hands on his hips. "No one seems to be up to anything around here, so the city's safe for tonight!"

The Insuperable blinks a couple times, then shrugs. "I can't disagree with that. You've been doing a good job while I'm gone."

Yuu scoffs. "Of course I am! I'm the Guardian Deity, after all! You need to step up your game." He squints threateningly at Insuperable until he chuckles.

"I will," the Insuperable says.

"I don't care how long you're staying this time, or how out of shape you are! You gotta do your part to protect this town too, you hear me?"

"I hear you," the Insuperable smiles.

"I'll fry your ass if you don't!"

"And I don't doubt that you will. You've worked hard. Go home and rest," the Insuperable says, jogging backwards with a small wave. "See you around?"

Yuu watches as the dark figure rounds the corner and disappears. "See you around," he echoes to the empty street.

Nothing falls into place yet. But Yuu gets the feeling that it's going to, soon.

 

"Please help us!" Ryuunosuke yells in Chikara's face as they're changing in the clubroom. No one so much as bats an eyelash, though Shouyou leaps about a foot in the air at the sudden outburst.

"Okay?" Chikara says.

"Please help us!" Yuu repeats, brandishing a crumpled stack of notes to prove his point. "There's a pop quiz next week and we don't get the material! Please help us!"

"Please!"

"Okay, okay!" Chikara raises his hands in surrender. "Where's Narita?"

"They're both still practicing in the gym," Tsukishima offers, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Yamaguchi's already waiting at the door, tapping away at his phone. "I could go get them if you want."

"Oh, it's alright, Tsukishima. You should go home." Chikara regards Ryuunosuke and Yuu with narrowed eyes. "I'll just have to handle these two myself, then."

"Gulp," Ryuunosuke says.

"Alright." Tsukishima waves cheerily as he leaves. "Good luck, Ennoshita-senpai."

"What's that supposed to mean!" Yuu yells at Tsukishima's retreating back. "Get back here, Tsukishima!"

"No, he’s going home and we're doing math." Chikara levels a stare at them. "Sit down."

"Gulp," Ryuunosuke says.

It takes the better part of an hour for Chikara to explain the bulk of the how the equations work with the questions, but by then Ryuunosuke's managed to do simpler questions and Yuu has stopped asking confused questions every couple minutes. "It's getting late," Chikara says, looking through the sheaf of notes in his hand. "You're both doing fine now and I have to lock up the clubroom, so you should both go home first."

"Nah, we'll wait for you," Ryuunosuke says, waving his hand dismissively. "Right, Noya-san?"

"Yeah!" Yuu chimes in. "We gotta make sure our Ennoshita-sensei gets home safe!"

"Please," Chikara responds dryly, "I can take care of myself." But he doesn't chase them out, and they take their time putting their things back in their bags. It's well into sundown by the time Chikara locks up and they leave the campus.

"Thanks for today, Chikara!" Yuu slaps Chikara on the shoulder for effect, earning himself a wince.

Chikara rubs his shoulder sheepishly. "You don't need to keep thanking me, Nishinoya."

Yuu laughs and slaps Chikara's shoulder once more anyway. "It's becoming a habit!"

"A better habit for you to cultivate would be paying attention in class," Chikara shoots back.

"Fair enough!"

"Hey, you two!" Ryuunosuke jerks a thumb towards the road branching off to their left. "I'm going this way. See y'all tomorrow."

"Don't forget to do the practices I told you to over the weekend," Chikara reminds him. Ryuunosuke sends him a salute and a sharp "yessir!" before heading off on the pavement, humming a cheery tune.

Chikara watches him go, and Yuu gets the distinct feeling that he's worrying. "He'll be fine," Yuu tells him, continuing down the main road. "We're third years now, so we're gonna be putting in the effort! And we promised to kick each other's butts if we didn't, so I'm not gonna let myself fall behind, either!"

Chikara's eyes seem to sharpen. Or at least it looks something like that, since the sun's setting and glaring in his face and Yuu isn't really sure. "The two of you sure are close. It's nice," Chikara tells him.

When Ennoshita Chikara talks, it's usually all soft syllables and smooth edges and the occasional almost introspective silence. There's no extra lilt to his voice on his _ō_ s, no extra pressure on his _-su_ s. And there definitely isn't ever a decisive sharpness to the ends of his sentences, because he's never all that sure of what he has to say. But Yuu couldn't explain all that even if he wanted to. All he knows is that Chikara sounds funny. "You sound funny," Yuu says.

"Do I?" Chikara asks, apparently a little surprised.

"Yeah! If you got something to say, you should just say it!" Yuu declares. "We've known each other long enough, you gotta know this already!"

"Ah, well," Chikara says, with his small, mild smile. "It really isn't anything major. Just a moment of weakness, that’s all."

Yuu thinks about this for a bit as they continue down the path. "But it's okay to be weak, Chikara!"

Chikara snorts a little at first, then starts laughing in earnest. Yuu is a little offended at how quickly he goes red in the face, but he's cute with his cheeks all rosy like that. And his mood seems to have lifted, which is a very nice bonus. "Sorry, sorry," Chikara manages between giggles. "It's just the way you said it. With my name. _Chikarayowai._ " He lets out a downright uncouth snort.

 

Yuu huffs, and is definitely not embarrassed in any way. "I didn't mean it as a joke! I'm serious!"

"I know, I know. But you're never serious," Chikara says, the tone of his voice going from mollifying to teasing as his eyes crinkle up into a smile. A grin. A bright, full one that glows, even against the flat black of their club jackets.

Yuu's brain doesn't quite short-circuit, but it's probably something pretty close—the sun's just beginning to dip under the horizon and it's throwing light everywhere at odd angles, but Yuu is almost convinced. Almost, because there's no way, absolutely no way it's this easy.

"Nishinoya?" Chikara's stopped smiling, mostly because he's now frowning at how Yuu's stopped in his tracks without a word. He reaches out to touch Yuu's arm, but Yuu flinches back, lightning-quick, before he even thinks about it. They stare at each other in varying levels of shock.

"Static," Yuu barely manages to choke out. _Static_ , his mind repeats back at him, mocking. He steps back and away from Chikara, who just seems confused and slightly distressed, if not upset. "I—I gotta go, it's this way, see you tomorrow!"

He starts off at a run down the roundabout route back home, and doesn't trust himself enough to look back.

 

“And that’s why I’m an asshole,” Yuu says.

“Ya know,” Ryuunosuke responds, after a short pause. “You sort of are.”

“Thanks a lot, Ryuu.”

“Ah, but, Noya-san,” Ryuunosuke says, and there’s a strange tone to his voice Yuu doesn’t really get. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You’re my friend, Ryuu!” Yuu exclaims, flopping backwards onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know who else to call! Hisashi would probably laugh at me and hang up, Shouyou doesn’t know Chikara well enough, and I can’t call the third years because they’d probably give me some long-winded lecture!”

“Narita?”

Yuu ponders this for a bit. “Alright, maybe I’d call Kazuhito if like, I couldn’t reach you or something. Or if you gave me shit advice.” He rolls over onto his side so he can stare at the wall. “But yeah! That’s why I’m telling you this!”

“Noya-san…” Ryuunosuke sounds like he’s tearing up. He’s always tearing up. “I’m so touched, Noya-san…”

“No crying on me, Ryuu! Not while I’m having a crisis!”

“Okay, Noya-san. Okay. No crying.” There’s a tiny sniffle, followed by the clearing of a throat. “Right. What I meant to say was, why are you telling me about your crisis instead of, you know, doin’ something about it?”

“Oh,” Yuu says. “Huh?”

Yuu can almost see Ryuunosuke scratching at his head in thought during the short pause that follows. “Like, Noya-san, you’re a man of action, not words! So why aren’t you sorta just going out there and telling him what you felt? What you meant? Ya know what I mean? … Hey? Noya-san? You there?”

“Ryuu,” Yuu says. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a genius?”

“I’ve been telling people that my whole life, but no one believes me! Can you imagine!”

Yuu’s grinning, because Ryuunosuke just seems to know exactly how to make him feel right and on his feet again. “I’m gonna go now, Ryuu! Thanks!”

“Go get ‘im, bro!”

Yelling a quick excuse to his mom, Yuu grabs his keys and sprints out of his house. It's already fully night outside, and the stars are blinking into view, one by one. Yuu’s been to Chikara’s house enough times to know the route well enough that he can navigate through the semi-darkness, and with luck he’d be done with his errand and back before his mom got too worried. He didn’t like worrying her.

There is a shout, followed by a muffled thumping of falling objects. Yuu skids to a stop, and without the pattering of his feet to distract him, he strains to hear the source of the disturbance. Sounds of a scuffle. Just down an alley to the right.

He makes his way as quietly as he can to the row of closed shops leading to the alley, and presses himself against the wall. Yeah, definitely a fight, but there didn’t seem to be any sounds of weapons being used, so he should probably be able to deal with this without being hurt too much, hopefully. Mom’s worried enough about all his disappearing acts and mysterious bruises as it is.

He taps into the power lines running through the shops and lets a small tendril of electricity flick off of his hand and crack at the entrance to the alleyway. The alley falls abruptly, unnervingly silent. Something thuds heavily to the ground, and then there’s a thumping of heavy footsteps. Yuu holds his breath.

A lean, muscled man steps out of the alleyway, glowering darkly at Yuu. His clothes look like someone’s tried to rip and claw at them, and his knuckles are bloodied. A pair of mismatched earrings glint at his earlobes.

Alright, Yuu can deal with this. It’s no one he can’t subdue in maybe five seconds, but it’d mean draining the power lines by quite a bit around the older areas of town. He’s not sure if he wants to put some of the old residents’ businesses at risk just to quickly take down some gang member, or whoever this dude is.

The man takes a swipe at him, and Yuu leaps easily out of his reach. Iced goodies or fighting crime? Garigari-kun or removing a potential danger to the residents? “You’re making this so difficult,” Yuu tells the man.

A strangely savage snarl and Yuu’s dancing away from another swing, having made his choice. It takes Yuu about two seconds more for him to confirm that he does, in fact, have enough control of the power lines to make sure that he won’t accidentally cause too much collateral damage, this time. And in those two seconds, someone lets out a yell—no, a _yelp_ , actually—from above him, and a dark figure trips off of a building, bounces butt-first off a nearby garbage dumpster, and lands (relatively) neatly on his feet.

“Go on, kid,” the Insuperable says, red-faced but still looking determined. “I got this.”

Yuu relinquishes his control on the power lines and might’ve said something if the large man hadn’t taken a swing at the Insuperable just then. The fist glances off Insuperable’s face and jerks his head roughly to the side. He doesn’t even flinch, but Yuu’s words stay lodged in his throat anyway. “I—“ Yuu tries.

“I said go! It’s too late for, um. For elementary school children to be hanging around at this hour,” the Insuperable says, pausing to assay Yuu for a second.

“I’m a high school student,” Yuu says.

“I see,” the Insuperable replies.

“I’m going home now,” Yuu calls to him, stepping back.

"You do that," the Insuperable says as the man hits him in the gut hard enough for him to stumble back..

Yuu turns around and starts running back in the direction he came from. Then he stops, and turns around. What do normal, everyday civilians say to a completely invulnerable superhero's who's being smacked uselessly around by a baddie? "You're gonna be okay, right?" he tries.

The Insuperable laughs, though it's cut off as he's hurled against the dumpster he fell from. "That's my superpower, the ability to always be okay," he says, pulling out the wooden baseball bat strapped to his back. A couple of strands of hair have escaped his carefully gelled hair, and they hang a little fetchingly over his eyes. "Don't worry about me!"

Yuu blinks at him for a couple seconds, then flashes him a thumbs-up. The Insuperable responds with one of his own before taking a mighty swing at the man, who hasn't given Yuu a second glance since the Insuperable showed up. It's not long until Yuu's sprinted back home, thighs burning and out of breath as his mom demands answers.

When the Guardian Deity arrives at the scene, the alley is empty, and there is nothing there to indicate that either Nishinoya Yuu or the Insuperable had been.

 

With Monday comes practice, and also a captain that no one seems to want to stop fawning over.

"WHOA, ENNOSHITA-SENPAI!"

"Wh-what?" Chikara pauses in taking off his jacket to stare bemusedly at Shouyou, who looks like his eyes are going to bug out of his head if he opens them any wider. "What is it?"

"That's...so cool! So cool, Ennoshita-san!" Shouyou yelps, windmilling his arms excitedly.

Kageyama had already drifted over at Shouyou's first outburst, presumably to yell at him to shut up, but was now also staring in amazement at Chikara and nodding jerkily in response to Shouyou's yelling. "Cool," he mutters.

"Hey, hey! Y'all are making too much of a ruckus! I could hear your yelling from outside, Shouyou," Ryuunosuke calls as he opens the door to the clubroom. "What would Daichi-san say?"

"I try not to think about that," Chikara replies dryly as Shouyou very obviously blanches at the thought. "Though I will make an attempt at reenactment if our new first-years are half as troublesome as this lot."

"WHOA, CHIKARA!" Yuu shrieks, pointing at Chikara's head. "What's that?!"

"You already yelled at him the moment you stepped into the club room, Nishinoya. You were the loudest out of all of us, with your ‘when, Chikara? When did you get that earring?!’" Hisashi pipes up from where he's putting on his volleyball shoes. Kazuhito muffles a laugh behind him. "Stop trying to join in on a conversation all late and stuff."

"I was distracted, okay? I was changing! Bleh, Hisashi!" Yuu sticks his tongue out at Hisashi, who gamely retaliates with a loud, wet raspberry.

"Enough about that, already," Chikara sighs, and he sounds tired but he's smiling anyway. "Did you all come here to trash-talk at me, or to play volleyball?"

"Well," Ryuunosuke begins, "I could say a lot to that—"

"Volleyball!" Kageyama and Shouyou answer in unison.

"Hey! Don't interrupt m—!"

Chikara claps his hands together. "Alright, since that's settled, let's go get warmed up before Coach Ukai arrives, yeah?"

"Yes!"

They run laps outside the school, and Chikara has Tsukishima and Yamaguchi make sure that Shouyou and Kageyama don't go running off to God-knows-where again. They don't grumble where Chikara can hear it—the last time they did, he'd smiled that one smile (the one with his eyes in crescents that makes him look like a kindly captain) and asked if there was a problem in that voice (the dangerous one he reserves for when he catches Yuu and Ryuunosuke trying to skip their weekly study sessions).

The two underclassmen run off ahead, and Chikara claims that the extra running they'd need to be doing would make up for their usual slower pace. Hisashi suggests that it's maybe because Chikara's just that evil and that they've all made a grave mistake in voting for him, until Chikara threatens to show him how evil he can _really_ be. (Turns out 'evil' just meant a half-hearted noogie to the victim's head as said victim pretended to cry and tried to make Kazuhito call the police.) And Yuu stays silent and watches the bright silver stud in Chikara's ear glint as it catches the light of the afternoon sun.

“Noya-san!” Ryuunosuke calls, falling back a little to match Yuu's pace. “I’ll run with you!”

He hadn't noticed he was slowing down. “Sure, Ryuu!” he says with a grin as he starts going at his usual pace again, and then a bit faster for good measure. To his credit, Ryuunosuke doesn't question anything, and just adjusts his speed to jog by Yuu's side.

“So,” Ryuunosuke starts. “Nice new accessory Ennoshita’s got, eh?”

“Sure,” Yuu says, eyes fixed on the road ahead. “It’s pretty cool.”

“Mm-hmm,” Ryuunosuke hums agreeably.

“Mm-hmm,” Yuu echoes.

“Sure looks nice on him, doesn’t it?”

“You’d look good with one too, Ryuu.”

“Yeah, but don’t ya think Ennoshita pulls it off pretty well?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Hmm,” Ryuunosuke comments. "You're quiet today, Noya-san."

"Bit tired, I guess," Yuu mumbles. "Had a late night."

Ryuunosuke nods gravely. "Such strength and dedication. You're truly an inspiration, Noya-san."

Yuu splutters incoherently. "An—an inspiration for what?" Had he actually figured it out? There were a lot of flaws in his disguise, sure, but he’d thought letting his hair down and temporarily turning his yellow tuft back to black with hair chalk was costume enough. At least Ryuu was definitely someone he trusted. There were worse people who could've found out about his secret.

Ryuunosuke looks at him the way he does whenever Yuu mentions how Kiyoko-san had slapped him all the way back when they were second years. Respect and admiration, with the faintest hint of envy. But with no hint of secretiveness whatsoever. "Ennoshita's been talkin' about how you've been studying a lot harder, lately. Says I gotta up my game if I wanna catch up to you!" He grins, and there's not even a little bit of sting to the words at all.

Yuu tries to exhale in relief but forgets that he's in the midst of a run, and has to pant a bit to recover his lost breath. "Y-yeah, I'm pulling a couple late nights to go through some content I missed in class. I know Daichi-san said not to do that, but I'm trying to catch up before I stop!" He laughs, and it sounds nervous even to his own ears.

Ryuunosuke, on the other hand, doesn't seem to notice at all. "Oh yeah, Daichi-san! I wonder what he'd say 'bout Ennoshita's new look?" He pulls a serious, no-nonsense face, and it looks so out of place on him that Yuu's snorting in amusement before he catches himself. "Ahem, ahem. 'Ennoshita! Are you trying to pull an Asahi?'" he barks, sounding more like a lower-pitched version of himself rather than anything like Daichi. "'The only one here who's really wild is Nishinoya!'"

"That's right, that's right!" Yuu declares, thumping his chest with a fist. "You should be calling me Master, Chikara!"

"Master of Wild, Noya-sensei!"

"Whoa, that sounds kinda cool!"

"Master of Wild and Master of Baldy," Chikara says with a small calm smile from where's he's jogging at a leisurely pace next to Yuu, "please focus on running instead of slandering me."

"Geh! Ennoshita!" Ryuunosuke yelps as he puts on a burst of speed. "You're on your own, Noya-san!"

"Ryuu, you asshole!" One of Chikara's hands is clutching the back of Yuu's shirt and stopping him from escaping, so he settles for shaking his fist at Ryuunosuke's retreating back instead. "I'm gonna have my revenge on you, just you wait!"

Ryuunosuke rejoins the rest of the team, and Chikara relinquishes his hold on Yuu's shirt. Yuu squints suspiciously up at him, careful not to stare too long at the shiny silver stud in his ear.

"What?" Chikara asks. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're letting me go way too early," Yuu says. "Are you going soft, Chikara?"

He gets a palm smacked into the back of his head for his efforts. "I'm not soft."

"Ow!" Yuu rubs the back of his head and glares at Chikara with no real malice. "You don't gotta make your point like that."

"I—" Chikara glances at his hand, then back at Yuu, and Yuu has no idea what's going through his head. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

Yuu laughs and socks Chikara in the arm. "I'm joking! It doesn't hurt at all, what's got you so uptight? You're not usually like this!" He considers this for moment. "Are you worried about how you look now?" Chikara stares blankly at him instead of forming any real reply, so he presses on. "You look fine. You look good, even. I think the earring suits you!" Yuu thumps his chest again. "Just trust the Master of Wild!"

Chikara looks plain astonished for a second, but finally starts laughing. Yuu feels something relax and uncoil itself inside him, and he feels something like relief as the warm sound of Chikara's laugh envelopes them both.

“I’m sorry,” Chikara says again, but he’s smiling this time. “I haven’t really felt like myself since the weekend. It’s been a little rough, but seeing all of you again anchors me.”

“Aw,” Yuu says. “You’re just like a real captain now, married to the sport!”

“Married to the team, more like,” laughs Chikara. “But I won’t deny that.”

“Oi! You guys!” Hisashi calls from where he’s running with Kazuhito, all the way ahead. “Less talking, more running!”

“Told off by my own vice-captain,” Chikara sighs, shaking his head. “I have a lot to learn.”

“Nonsense,” Yuu says as they speed up to catch up with the rest of the team. “You’ve seen how it is with Suga-san and Daichi-san! You’re supposed to be yelled at by the vice-captain, it’s like the law.”

“Fair enough.”

 

The Insuperable doesn’t look for him on his patrol that night, and Yuu doesn’t know where to find him, either. Heck, if he knew how to reach the Insuperable at all times, this whole last year probably wouldn’t even have happened! Or maybe it still would. Whatever. At least there’d be a lot less frustration on Yuu’s part.

In any case, he makes most of his patrol run in relative peace and quiet. A spooked rat here and the watchful, bright gaze of a cat there, but the town is otherwise calm. Tranquil. Just the way it should be.

Yuu is restless.

“Stop it,” he says to himself, but low enough for it to almost be a whisper. The sort of words that would’ve puffed up into little clouds in front of him, had it been a month or two later. “That’s not good.”

There is no response from the town, only silent streets and empty rooftops. Yuu stifles a sigh. Maybe he should try travelling through the low roofs of the town’s houses and shops, too. Seems efficient enough, though the Insuperable never had this much trouble getting down from the rooftops a year ago. The Guardian Deity kicks at a large piece of gravel at the thought, then zaps it with a quick bolt when it refuses to fly like he’d expected it to. It snaps firmly in two, with one half sent through the air at the impact and vaulting over a tall fence.

There’s no sound of a landing.

Yuu follows the fence until he reaches an end, where he skirts gingerly around it. He can’t see anything through the darkness, but it’s definitely another badly-lit alley. He really needs to talk to the Town Council about this. If anything, he didn’t like being spooked by pitch-black areas while patrolling. He has enough edge to his nights without that extra paranoia, thank you very much.

He advances slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light. Two strange, dark shapes, against the wall of the low building opposite the fence. Two bodies. He’s checking their vitals immediately, and only starts to breathe again when he feels the faint pulsing in their wrists and the steady rise and fall of their chests. Unconscious, not worse. He sheepishly brushes the piece of stray gravel off one man's shirt before pulling out his work phone, a old model with the barest of text and call services, and starts dialing in the number for an ambulance.

Then he’s losing his balance, and all he can feel is the impact of something heavy slamming against his back. He’s barely able to stop himself from smacking face-first into the ground by dropping the phone and dulling the impact with his forearms, but by then the weight on his back is already moving, striking out at him with hands and legs and doesn’t let go until Yuu throws himself sideways and dislodges it.

The Guardian Deity scrambles frantically to his feet. Too dark. Enough electricity around to redirect, but not here, not with the risk of hurting innocents. Out, back out into the light.

He’s barely made it out of the alley when his attacker tackles him again, knocking him to the ground, but this time he’s ready, and he’s able to face forward without his back exposed.

Face forward, up, and into a familiar pair of heavy-lidded brown eyes. A single earring reflecting the soft glow of the street lamps as cold silver light.

“Chikara,” Yuu breathes.

Ennoshita Chikara swings a clumsy fist at him, but he dodges easily, and the fist smashes heavily into the gravel. Yuu takes the opportunity to slam a palm into the side of Chikara’s face, and he loses his balance just enough for Yuu to slide out from under him, gravel digging into his skin through the material of his hero costume.

Chikara struggles to get to his feet, shoulders hunched in on themselves. Yuu notices his motions are sluggish, jerky. Nothing like the way he plays, gradually more practised as the days pass but still a tad unsure of himself. This is not how Chikara moves. This Chikara uses his limbs as weapons, not shields, and doesn’t parry a single of Yuu’s blows. There is not a bruise on his face. There is not a single scratch.

This Chikara swings the fist again, the one that had hit the sharp edges of the gravel at full force, and Yuu sees the slightly callused, but completely undamaged skin.

His first thought is— _why_ , why you, why not anyone else, anyone less important of a friend, anyone easier to hate or to blame, and it’s startled out of him as the fist approaches his face too fast and he barely dodges, and the knuckles scrape past his cheekbone. His second thought is jerked out of him as a shout, and it’s one that’s swallowed by the otherwise empty streets.

"Why are you doing this?"

Chikara looks up, looks right at him, and the Guardian Deity notices—and Yuu knows—that the eyes don’t belong to Chikara. They're too lifeless, dead. And then he finally takes a breath, reaches for the power he can feel flowing through the circuits beneath his feet, and lets his fingers brush past the fabric of Chikara’s uniform sleeve.

The expected jerking of the muscle, and it’s another touch to Chikara’s legs before he falls over. It’s a little while more until he stops moving, and by then Yuu’s already on the ground, trying to catch his breath.

The Insuperable. An Ennoshita Chikara with unfocused, unseeing eyes. Two pieces that don’t seem to fit together, but do.

God, this is too much for one night.

Phone. Where’d he drop it? He needs to call an ambulance for three people now, though he’s not sure how to explain why he’d dispatched Chikara. Because he looked suspicious? Because he wasn’t himself? He wasn’t sure the police would accept such a reason. The muted glint of the mobile phone peeks out from somewhere near Chikara’s head. Great. Now he has to go over there and look at Chikara's face some more. He gets to his feet again with a heavy exhale, and stomps heavily towards the phone.

He’s dialing the numbers again, but Chikara’s earring sparkles at him, and his hand stalls on the 9. Chikara’s earring winks curiously, mischievously at him. (Chikara’s eyes are closed, lashes fanned prettily across skin, but he doesn’t notice any of that.) The earring beckons, calls, and Yuu reaches out a hand—

 

It’s morning, and it’s time for school. Yuu gets up, goes to the bathroom, washes his face. Brushes his teeth in the mirror. Washes the rest of the black hair chalk out and gels up his hair, careful not to jostle the new silver piercing on his right ear.

 

Yuu feels his days running on autopilot. He goes through his lessons in a daze, and leaves his classes with barely legible notes in chicken-scratch he almost doesn’t recognise as his own hand. He can’t remember conversations with his classmates. Something at the back of his mind nags him to pick up the daily newspapers, and he gets the vague impression that it’s a usual habit of his, but right now it just doesn’t seem important enough.

The only time the fog around his mind lifts is when it’s time for practice, when he can blink his vision clearer and stand up a little straighter, his body feeling more like his own.

"Oh, Noya-san, I didn't see you at lunch today—Whoa!" Ryuunosuke says the moment Yuu steps into the clubroom. "You too?"

"Nishinoya-senpai!" Shouyou crosses the room in two entire bounds just to gawk at Yuu. "It looks so cool on you!"

"You think so?" Yuu laughs, putting his bag down. "You flatter too much, Shouyou."

“Nuh-uh! It’s cool, honestly!”

“What’s cool?” Chikara pokes his head around the clubroom door, already changed. “Hurry up and get to the gym already, you’re all late.”

“Ennoshita-senpai! Nishinoya-senpai’s got an earring, too!”

Chikara squints at Yuu, brows knitting. “So he does. Is that new, Nishinoya?”

Yuu takes a second too long to answer, staring at Chikara’s face, trying to remember something. Something important. But he can’t recall anything. “Yeah! I just got it yesterday, after school,” he hears himself saying. There is a grin on his face. “I got inspired by your new style, Chikara!”

Chikara blinks. Yuu can’t read him at all. “I’m flattered, but could you all please get into the gym? Coach Ukai’s already waiting, and I’m taking too long as it is.”

Yuu rushes to finish changing as everyone else shuffles dutifully out of the room. He’s running to catch up with the rest of the team when he’s stopped by a hand on his arm. Chikara’s. “What’s up?”

“You didn’t actually get that earring because of me,” Chikara says, voice low. Yuu notices that the stud he wears in his ear is a tiny, green leaf, and might’ve thought it was cute, a couple days ago. Now, he doesn’t really feel like he cares. “Did you?”

A strange sort of annoyance bubbles up in him. “Why is this a problem, Chikara?”

“I don’t know,” Chikara says, plainly. “Something feels off. And that earring looks familiar.”

“Chikara,” Yuu says, feeling the annoyance flare into something akin to irritation. “Are you accusing me of something?”

“What?” Chikara looks baffled. “No, no I’m not.”

“Then we have practice to go to,” Yuu says, turning his back.

 

Yuu doesn’t remember his nights. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s with his homework barely done and his knuckles bruised. His mother is quiet as he leaves the house.

 

“You’re kinda cold to Ennoshita these days, aren’t ya?” Ryuunosuke says to him as they wait in line to do serve receives. Yuu thinks it’s in a joking tone. It’s hard to tell, these days. “Did he mess up, or something? You should tell me, I’ll kick his ass for ya!”

“Maybe you should focus on studying instead of doing things like this,” Yuu says, automatically.

“Nishinoya!” Coach Ukai calls. “You’re up!”

“Yes!” Yuu hurries forward and away from Ryuunosuke.

He thinks maybe he imagines the faint, hurt, “Noya-san…?” that trails after him. He’s not sure. It’s hard to tell, these days.

 

Yuu jerks awake, blood thumping in his ears. He doesn’t remember where he is. This isn’t his room, the light is wrong and there are no walls. He’s on his feet, not on his bed or in the chair beside his desk. He forces his gaze to focus, and finally the environment looks a little more familiar—the streets of Miyagi. It’s evening, or some time close to that, because there’re still hints of light in the sky even though the lamps are already on.

He feels exhausted, like that time years ago when he was testing his limits and short-circuited his entire street. He’d come down with a horrible fever, then. Now, he just feels like his arms are going to fall off, but he doesn’t remember what he’s done to be this tired.

His knuckles are bloodied and scabbed. A part of his mind--a part not yet buried under the strange fatigue that's been plaguing him--recoils from the horror that he might have hurt people, the very people he'd been trying to protect.

“Nishinoya Yuu,” says a soft voice.

A dark figure, crouched on the low roof of a nearby building. Yuu struggles to remember, to form words. “Insuperable,” he says.

The Insuperable smiles, and he looks almost delighted. “You remember me.”

“You know my name.”

The dark figure shrugs. “It’s a small town.”

Yuu still feels like there’s something he’s forgetting. “Why are you here?”

“Why are _you_ here?” the Insuperable counters sharply.

“I don’t know,” Yuu says. “I don’t remember.”

The brows knit behind the mask, and the eyes look almost sad. “I’m here for you.”

“Why?” Yuu doesn’t understand. “What have I done?”

“You’ve hurt too many. Take off the earring,” the Insuperable tells him.

There is a sudden, dangerous calm that rushes around Yuu’s head, and he realises with a jolt that his body is no longer his. “No,” his mouth says.

The Insuperable sighs. “I was afraid of this. If you won’t give it to me, then I’ll have to take it myself,” he says. “It was mine before it was yours, anyway.”

Yuu doesn’t respond, only lets his palms crackle with electricity, and it's answer enough.

The Insuperable looks for a second like he might fall off his perch, but then his face breaks into a smile, and he’s laughing, laughing with no mirth. “You! It was you, all along. I should’ve known. All the signs were there.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t left, you would have figured it out a lot sooner,” Yuu hears himself saying. “Maybe if you hadn’t run away from your duty to the people. From your team. From me."

To his surprise, the Insuperable merely makes a face, and doesn’t even seem properly upset. “You’re not yourself. You’re saying this just to hurt me, and I don’t care.” He smiles, soft and sad. “I left because I was weak. I came back to get stronger. And you would never fault me for that.”

 _You’re right_ , Yuu thinks. _I wouldn’t. No one would look down on a serve aimed for victory._ “What if I'm blaming you now?” Yuu hears himself say.

The Insuperable doesn’t say anything, and simply leaps from the building, landing firmly, perfectly in a crouch. Yuu lets his first bolt fly, but he dodges it almost as if he’d been waiting for it, and the wall behind him is hit with the brunt of the attack. “No mercy, even for a former partner?” The Insuperable taunts, almost grinning. “Terrible.”

Yuu doesn’t seem to be able to say anything else, and just gives in to the fighting. He can tell that his aim is off, that his control is barely there, and the Insuperable gets closer to him with each missed shot— _what a liar_ , Yuu thinks, _was all that prior clumsiness was just an act?_ A swift kick to the shins and he’s down, a single stray bolt streaking up into the sky as he loses control of the electric lines and has the breath knocked out of him.

“Stop fighting, Yuu,” the Insuperable says.

Yuu responds by striking him in the face, hard enough that his head jerks back, and he takes the chance to regain his hold on the power lines. He’s about to slam a palm full of volts into the Insuperable’s face when something dark goes flying out into the street, and when the Insuperable turns back, it’s with completely unmarred skin and no mask.

“Oh,” Yuu breathes.

"Hi," Chikara says and he’s smiling that smile, the one that glows, and the bolt dies in Yuu's hand. Then Chikara’s palm is flashing forward, forward and into his face, and everything explodes in pain and darkness.

 

Yuu jerks awake, and his his entire face feels like it’s on fire. “Shit, Chikara,” he mutters darkly, though it’s a little too nasally for it to be properly threatening. “Did you break my nose?”

Chikara looks at him with equal parts amusement and sympathy as he snaps a little suede box shut. “I don’t think so, I didn’t really hit that hard. Might be swollen for a week or so, though.”

Yuu feels a particular weight missing from his ear, and eyes the little box suspiciously. “I can’t believe you ruined my face to save my life,” Yuu whines.

“Me neither. A shame, really,” Chikara says, setting the box on the floor and shifting a little closer to inspect Yuu’s face. “How are you feeling? Though, if you’re able to complain, then it probably doesn’t hurt that much.”

“You wanna try taking a fist to the face too, Chikara?!”

Chikara shrugs. “I mean, if you want me to. Not that it’d prove anything.”

Yuu groans. “God, I forgot that you—that you’re—it must be so convenient! You don’t have to carry weird bruises around for days or worry about people thinking you’re getting into fights, _and_ you still look perfect after kicking a bunch of baddies’ butts.”

“I don’t think I look _perfect_ , per se,” Chikara laughs, running his hand through the mussed and tousled mess that had once been meticulously gelled hair. “But it’s nice to know that you think so.”

“Shut up, Chikara,” Yuu says, trying not to stare and probably doing a downright piss-poor job of it. “Shut up and help me up.”

Yuu wobbles a bit as he gets to his feet, a little dizzy from the throbbing pain in his face and sheer exhaustion, but then Chikara’s hand is there at the small of his back to steady him, and he’s feeling fine. More than fine. He’s actually feeling more awake than he has in ages, and it’s probably one hundred percent due to the removal of the earring’s influence, with no other reasons whatsoever. None.

“So? Where to?” Chikara asks, hand still warm against Yuu’s back. “Should I take you home?”

“Not without the mask, no.” Yuu considers this for a moment. “Actually, you should definitely go without the mask. Mom’s gonna flip if she sees you in that outfit, and I wanna be there to see it.”

“Alright, then,” Chikara decides, “mask on it is.”

The Insuperable explains matter-of-factly in a smooth, easy voice to Yuu’s mom that he’d saved Yuu from a mugging, but also that he had been too late to prevent any damage to him. Yuu mouths _you big fat liar_ at him from where he’s standing beside his mom, and the Insuperable just smiles warmly at him.

Yuu’s mom clasps his hand tightly in gratitude, eyes shining ever so slightly with tears, and Yuu sees a piece of himself in those eyes. He puts a hand on her shoulder as Chikara leaps easily up a tree and onto a building (he’d been practicing, he definitely had been), and she puts her own hand over his, squeezing it tight.

 

“So,” he says into the phone tucked beside his unpierced ear—he’d opted to keep the piercing since Chikara had kept that cute little leaf earring, and he now had a new starter stud in it but it still stung like _hell_ —as he squints at the horrible notes he’d done during the past week. These would all have to go. He hopes Narita isn’t gonna be too stingy with his notes when he goes to beg for copies tomorrow. Actually, he probably needed to buy everyone lunch for a week or something, if Ryuunosuke's account of how much of an asshole he'd been the past week was to be believed. He'd made up some excuse about stress, and Ryuu had forgiven him, but he still felt awful. And Chikara had more or less been the same, even under control of the earring. Unfair. “What’re you gonna do with that thing?”

“I’ll think of some way to dispose of it,” Chikara says. He sounds tinny over the phone, more Chikara than Insuperable. “Find an incinerator, or something similar.”

“What? No dramatic disposals into the sea, or stuff like that? And Matsushima Bay is so close, too.”

“Littering is bad, Nishinoya. And things get washed up on shore all the time. It’s too dangerous to let anyone else have it. It should be safe with me for now, since it’s already gotten me once, but I don’t want to have to beat up anyone from my family.”

“I could keep—”

“—no,” Chikara interrupts without a beat of hesitation. “I can’t put your family in that sort of danger, either. And I only managed to defeat you because you were distracted, so if it decides you’re worth possessing again, I’m not sure I could pull something like that off a second time. Whereas you could just shock me a couple times.”

“Ooh,” Yuu coos. “You’re right! I can totally kick your ass whenever I want to.”

“Don’t push your luck,” Chikara intones.

“Right, right!”

Chikara snorts. “Well, if that’s all you wanted to ask about, I have work to catch up on. And you do, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Eh! Wait, Chikara!” Yuu shrieks abruptly. “I wanna ask you something!”

“Um.” Chikara says. "Okay?"

“Do you! Like! Maybe wanna!” Yuu yells into the receiver, before he loses his nerve. “Go patrolling together sometime!”

It takes a while for Chikara to stop laughing. It’s a very nice laugh, so Yuu thinks it’s probably a good sign. “Sure,” Chikara finally chokes out. “Let’s do that.”

“Whoa. You said yes.” Yuu pauses. “I gotta hang up right now so I can tell Ryuu.”

“Sure,” Chikara says. “Remember to keep warm. Goodnight, Guardian Deity.”

“Bleh," Yuu says. "You'd better not start calling me that now."

"Oh, trust me, I'll do it every time the phrase 'Rolling Thunder' leaves your mouth."

Yuu gasps. "You wouldn't." 

"Try me." It's low, playful.

"I'll zap you, I swear!"

"With your Rolling Thunder Again?" 

"Argh!" Yuu slams his forehead into his desk. "Shut up, No-Sell!" 

Chikara laughs again, bright and real. "You can shut me up tomorrow," he says. "Goodnight, Yuu."

Yuu lets himself smile so wide his face hurts. It's nice and it feels right. "Goodnight, Chikara."

**Author's Note:**

> @asofthaven: i hope this was ok as a fill! it wasn't as romance-y or as well-explored as i'd have liked, (i wrote in electricity powers for noya just so i could make so many rolling thunder jokes but i ONLY DID ONE) but i hope you've enjoyed it anyway! ennonoya is good. so good 
> 
> happy holidays o/


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